Accident
by SaintAugustana
Summary: Joey decides to come clean for once. Doesn't mean she's off the hook. Warning: spanking/cp/corporal punishment of a minor. One-shot.


** Author's Note: I like to skip around when I write, so enjoy a story involving a much older Joey. No Sydney here – he is killed a few years earlier.**

"Gibbs?" Joey peeked anxiously around the corner of the living room, where her godfather sat in his typical gray sweats and a navy NIS sweatshirt, enjoying a cup of coffee and last Thursday's newspaper. The TV, set on CBS 11 news, seemed less of an attraction and more of an afterthought of background noise.

"Mmmf?" he looked up, swallowing a gulp of the warm drink. "It's past midnight, Joey, still awake?"

Joey's resolve to come clean dwindled a bit at the hint of concern in his voice. Quickly squelching all thoughts of retreating back to the comfort of her bedroom, Joey cautiously paced into the living room, looking all of seven instead of seventeen, a number she'd recently acquired, along with a brand new (used, of course) little car, a lime green Opel she'd picked out and admired greatly since.

"I have to tell you something."

Unfortunately, as teenage luck has it, she'd wrecked the car about a week back, rendering it undriveable, lest she want to be labeled a loser for life by her friends in high school. The entire right side of the thing was smashed in. The night it happened, she called Gibbs, feigning a _bit_ of rattled demeanor, and preached a big whole story about an 18-wheeler hit-and-run.

Lies, lies, _lies. _She had broken the law, trying to get around another lane to make an illegal u-turn on a dark road at a late hour. Not seeing the semi, he blasted right past her, smacking her car around as she turned slightly.

Point being, it was ugly, and she didn't want to get into trouble for breaking the law. Not with the police, and especially not with Gibbs.

It wasn't that she hated the _punishments_, so much, as she hated him being disappointed with her.

But her guilty conscience was a punishment in itself, one she figured to be a lot worse than what he'd probably dole out if she just told him the truth – there'd be a reading of the riot act, a month of grounding, a loss of car (for at least the duration of the grounding) and an order to pay back for damages...and probably all the extra gasoline he'd been using to drive her to places she could have been driving herself had the car not been totaled. She was in for a few weeks of torturous boredom, that's for certain.

These musings dragged her out of bed on a Friday evening and into the living room, fully committed to coming clean.

Gibbs sat up to listen, setting his paper down on the couch beside him.

Joey stumbled on the words for a minute, trying to both say the right thing and appear contrite. She ran a hand through her mussed mop of brown hair, which was still relatively boy-cut, as it was when she was a child – though now her gained height of 5'4'' and new level of maturity made it seem less of a subconscious move and more of a self-conscious one – and fingered the sleeve of her navy shirt.

"It wasn't a hit-and-run. The accident."

She paused, as if expecting immediate rebuke. Gibbs simply nodded his head, as if thinking inwardly very hard. After a moment, he looked back up at her, waiting.

"I tried to make an illegal u-turn across a lane that I thought was...empty. I didn't see the semi. And it wasn't a hit-and-run...he stopped and we made sure we were okay, but we didn't exchange information or anything."

"Mmmm."

Defeated, Joey dropped her hands to her sides. "I thought you should know. It's been bugging me. I'm-" but quickly she caught herself and crushed the 'sorry' inside her, squeezing her eyes shut and hanging her head in self-reproach. "I should have told the truth."

"You should have," he replied levelly.

There was an awkward pause. Joey fidgeted anxiously.

"What now?" Gibbs asked.

"What?"

"What _now_?"

"What do you- why are you asking me that?" Joey took a tentative seat on the chair.

"You seem to want to make your own decisions, decide what's best for yourself, so you tell me, what do we do now?"

"I don't know."

"You don't know?"

"...no, sir." She wondered where Gibbs was planning on taking this, but got his first point.

"Why did you lie?"  
"I was afraid of getting into trouble. For breaking the law."

"Joey, on the day you turned seventeen you practically screamed your adulthood to the world. There's responsibility to be taken."

Joey hung her head. "I would have gladly spent a _year_ in jail for that one accident, Gibbs," she whispered. "I was always ready to deal with the police...just...not with you."

Gibbs pushed his paper onto the cushion beside him leaned forward, pulling off his glasses. "Are you afraid of me?"

"No, of course not." she laughed, "I just don't want the only person I have to be disappointed in me."

"Joey, I have never been disappointed in you. Just..._at_ you. Because of stupid, reckless, idiotic stunts you pull. Who cares about the car – it can be fixed. _You_ can't, and you put yourself in the firing line of one of the most dangerous things on the road, an 18-wheeler semi rig. Breaking the law on the road is never right, but not because of the reasons you think."

Gibbs rose and paced around Joey's chair, up the step to the kitchen, and rinsed his mug in the sink.

"It's not just that we have to follow rules for their own sake. It's for your sake, too. Jesus, girl, give this old guy his peace of mind."

"So....you're not upset about this?"

"I didn't say that."

Joey dropped her head, having hoped to get off the hook.

He dried his hands. "You lied. That plus breaking the law merits a consequence, don't you think?"

"Yes, sir." She stood, as if bracing herself for the great impact of grounding or extra chores, suddenly disappointed she was still a head shorter than Gibbs, even at 17.

"Grounded for a month," Gibbs began, firmly, as he returned to the living room. "No phone, no friends. You come straight to NCIS after school every day-"

"But Gibbs, I have no c-"

"Walk," he interrupted. "That's how you got by before, you can do it again. When you come home, you work on homework, or in the basement with me, cleaning tools."

Joey groaned. The last time she'd broken into Gibbs' tool polish she smelt like tar for weeks.

"Do you understand why you need to be a safe driver or should I explain that to you?"

"No, sir," she ground out, "I think I've got that bit."

"Good."

He paced to the dining room, grabbing a chair on which he sat down, pushing the coffee table a bit farther back away with his foot. "Come here."

She hesitated.

"Gibbs-" _Oh no, no, no. No way. I am way to old for that. _

"I want to drive this message home loud and clear, Michaela Joanne Grey-" Joey swallowed, "-legally you are still a child for one more year, and for that year you will live under my rules, which include taking responsibility for your actions. Seeing as you refused to do this the clean-cut, easy way, you'll have to do it mine."

"But Gibbs, a _spanking..._" she pleaded.

"Want to make it a _strapping_?"

She opened her mouth slightly, about to answer in the affirmative...being bent over the bed for a whipping was much less intimate and vulnerable-feeling that being taken over his lap...not that she didn't have every scrap of respect in the world for him, but she wasn't a little kid anymore, goddammit. It had been months and months since her last encounter with his hand.

But Gibbs' belt hurt like hell.

So, slowly, all trace of resolution gone, she trudged to his side and lowered herself over his lap, already feeling the resolve drain from her face, only to be replaced by the intense heat of embarrassment and shame.

He straightened her out a bit and, with his left hand grabbing her collar and holding her in place, raised his right and brought it down in a loud swat. He caught the faint sound of a whimper as she bit it back and felt her biceps tense in an effort to keep her hands from flying back. One would figure, after all the trouble she'd gotten into over the years and by the number of times Gibbs had actually pulled over his lap, that she'd learned some restraint.

He continued to smack her, but didn't lecture alongside as he usually did. After all, she'd come to him. A flutter of pride rippled through his gut. Despite her occasional idiocy, she did make him one proud godfather.

After a couple dozen, Joey had tucked her arms beneath her head and was crying quietly into the fabric of Gibbs' sweats. Growing older had made her more mature when dealing with the consequences of her actions, and again, proudly, Gibbs noticed she wasn't trying to fight him off or escape.

Her stomach squirmed uncomfortably, however, at being subjected to such a childish punishment. Joey couldn't keep biting back her whimpers and the occasional sob that dislodged themselves from her throat. Her backside burned painfully, and she wondered when Gibbs would be satisfied enough to stop.

Finally, he did.

"Joey," he whispered in quiet command. The teen buried her sweaty face in her folded arms and tried to subdue her own crying, failing. Her shoulders shook rattly with the tears.

"Joey, I'm proud of you for coming to me. I wish you had done it sooner."

She nodded, choking on that breath that marked the end of a deluge.

"Do you know why you're here?"

"I put myself in danger," she returned.

"And I promise you, should you do it again I won't give you a choice. It'll be a strapping."

She gave one more guttural whimper at that, but nodded. "Y'sir."

"Alright." He released his hold on her thin cotton collar and rubbed her back soothingly. When she was a child, Gibbs would often hold her in his lap after warming her backside, but she was nearly full grown and the position had become awkward. Instead, they'd [unsponkenly] adopted something more comfortable.

Joey slid a ways off of Gibbs lap until she was kneeling beside him, her head upon her arms in his lap. Gingerly, her butt came to rest on the heels of her feet, and her breathing steadied as he carded a hand through her thick hair and kneaded her shoulderblades.

After a few minutes, Gibbs began to feel her chest inflating with big, heavy yawns.

"Gibbs?" she inquired, though it came out funny and elongated as she took in a large, sleepy breath.

"Hmmm."

"What about my car?"

"It's not a lost cause. A little elbow grease and it'll be driveable again."

"But it'll look like shOW!"

Gibbs had swatted her once more.

"It'll look like crap," she corrected hoarsely, wincing.

"Ah, she'll be alright," he countered amiably. "Come on, let's get you to bed. Gotta be up early if you're gonna walk to school."

Joey groaned, but stood and followed Gibbs to her bedroom, rubbing her backside gingerly. He flipped on the bedside lamp and pulled the covers back.

"I'm not a little kid, Gibbs, ya don't have to tuck me in," Joey whined, sounding all of seven instead of seventeen.

He just pointed pointedly toward the exposed sheets and she grumbled, ambling over.

She made a few more meek protests, but eventually gave up and allowed herself to be taken care of. Gibbs pulled the blankets up around her shoulders, gave her head a quick rub, doused the lamp, and left, pulling the door to a gentle close behind him. Joey's easy snores echoed within.

He hopped down the flight of stairs and returned to his position on the couch, legs outstretched upon the coffee table, paper and coffee in hand. Somehow, though, as he skimmed Sports, he couldn't help but ponder the car. In an oddly coincidental way (odd given that he didn't believe in coincidences), Joey had made the whole thing out to be some sort of funny metaphor without even realizing it. Like that poor Opel, she'd been picked up secondhand after a rough life, been in a few deep scrapes, but she wasn't a lost cause. A little elbow grease and she was always back on her feet, ready to go and get into even bigger games.

And yes, occasionally it all just looked like _crap._

But she'd be alright. Gibbs didn't doubt that.

Yeah. _She'll be alright._


End file.
